December NPD 2019

[Bofferbrauer2]

thismeintiel said:

curl-6 said:

Entry price for a model most customers chose against even when it was $100 cheaper though. The full Switch experience, which most customers evidently prefer, still cost buyers an entry price of $299.

And "wonders" is still overstating it; if the Lite had not come along plenty of those who bought it might have just picked up a regular Switch, so we can't even say it added 400k for sure.

Define plenty?  Cause if the full experience was what people prefer, why even buy the lesser model?  The fact is, those who are buying it at $199, even though it has fewer features, are people who won't buy it at $299.  If they would buy it at $299, they would have just got the OG model to have the "full experience."  No Lite and you can bet 350K+ of those sales go away. 

Nintendo knows what it is doing and knew when to time the Lite release.  Now, quite a few people who would have waited for the OG model to get a cut to $199 can jump on board, turning any months that would possibly have shown drops YOY to now showing gains.  Same goes for normal price cuts on other consoles.

Think Families with several children, for instance. You only need one base model per household, for the rest, you could opt for a lite without the limitations of the base model really mattering much anymore. Or if you really just need something to play on the road and don't care at all about gaming on it at home.

The price doesn't push people to buy it. Rather, it makes buying the gimped version acceptable for some. Because the vast majority plays both at home on the TV and mobile, and that's something they simply couldn't do on the lite. It removed one of the main reasons why the Switch is such a runaway success, and that why it's sales are way below those of the base model.

And just think about it, if your theory was true that people rushed to buy the cheaper console and that it was the reason for the great sales, then the lite would have needed to outsell the base console, but that didn't happen in the slightest.